This is precisely the kind of thing Kevin McHale will hear from a lot of people at Toyota Center over these next few months. Of the many pieces of advice the friendly local columnist will dispense in the years ahead, this might be the most important.

Once a week, pick up the telephone and touch base with your boss. When you're in town, stop by his office. Tell him what's up with the team. Tell him what you like and what you don't. Answer his questions.

In other words, build a comfort level, if not a friendship. Most of these conversations won't last 10 minutes, but they could be hugely important in allowing the Rockets to function smoothly. If your job security is increased along the way, so much the better.

Instead of having team president Tad Brown or general manager Daryl Morey serve as a go-between, instead of allowing tension to fester, why can't we all get along?

Is it important? Of course it is. How silly to think otherwise. For one thing, it's basic common sense. How does it work at your office?

In the NBA, there might be times the coach and general manager see a team's needs differently, and the owner needs to hear all points of view.

Also, it's childish to put the general manager in position to go find out why one play was run at the end of the game instead of another. In the end, a coach can only help himself by communicating with the man in charge.

If this kind of thing sounds basic to any productive workplace environment, it's not the norm in professional sports.

Wall of separation

"It mystifies me," Alexander said Monday. "You'd think somebody who is the ultimate decider of your fate and wants to know what's going on would not have to claw information from them."

In the NBA, many coaches prefer to work as their own separate entity. They have their players and their assistants and their trainers, and they wall them off from the rest of the organization. Mistrust develops. Hard feelings, too.

For instance, McHale's two predecessors — Van Gundy and Rick Adelman - chose to have virtually no relationship with their boss. Did it hasten their departure? It couldn't have helped.

"I've always had great relationships with my general managers - with Daryl and CD (Carroll Dawson)," Alexander said. "Coaches for some reason find it more difficult than general managers. Don't ask me why, but they do."

Once upon a time, Alexander was a regular visitor to the locker room, but this practice ceased with some encouragement from Van Gundy. The odd thing is, Alexander is far from an intrusive owner.

By most estimates, he'd phone Van Gundy and Adelman three or four times a season. Still, he found the conversations to be unproductive, if not hostile. Coaches apparently perceived Alexander's blunt style as second-guessing their work.

Now, about that tone. Alexander doesn't suffer fools. He's not much for small talk. He gets to the point .

McHale will be warned about this. The thing is, Alexander is not second-guessing. He's seeking information. Nothing more.

He might challenge the conventional thinking, but he does that with all his employees. Are coaches above being questioned?

And it's not like he fires a lot of coaches. He has had just four in 18 years, and even though he had an unsatisfying relationship with Adelman and Van Gundy, he allowed them to fulfill their contracts.

Van Gundy's regret

If McHale will just give a relationship a chance to grow, if he'll engage the owner and try to understand his perspective, he might come to love working for Alexander, who is by almost any definition a great owner.

That is, he burns to win and will put his money where his mouth his. The Rockets have smart, competent people at every level of the organization. In return, Alexander would like to be kept in the loop. Pretty good trade-off, huh?

As Van Gundy texted: "My perspective is that Les was easy to work for, and I mean super easy. He wanted to win, he stayed out of your way, he spent money if it made sense. You don't find that in every situation."

Van Gundy said he wishes he had been more open with Alexander about how the Rockets were playing and why they were playing a certain style. Brown said it could have made a difference.

"I've always told people that if Jeff had played things differently, he'd still be coach of the Rockets," Brown said. "Les loves his intellect and work ethic. He just wants to know how he thinks we're doing. Dialogue doesn't have to be confrontational."

I asked Alexander what relationship he'd like to have with McHale.

"An open dialogue I guess you would call it," he said. "I want to understand what's going on. I want to understand how the team is being coached and the reasons for doing things. "

In these first days of McHale and Alexander, we have a beautiful marriage. But will it be different when the injuries, travel, losses and stress pile up? That's when nerves fray and organizations sometimes splinter.

"Kevin is very open, refreshingly so," Alexander said. " Last week, we hosted season-ticket holders at Vic and Anthony's. Kevin went to every single person, slapped them on the back, spoke to them. He tried to help the organization and make everyone feel part of the party."

I said something about everyone just working for the same thing - winning games, selling tickets, etc.